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The Provision of Services (Insolvency Practitioners) Regulations 2009 SI published

Just as a rather large hullabaloo seems to be enveloping the corporate insolvency industry (which is currently under investigation by the OFT) the The Provision of Services (Insolvency Practitioners) Regulations 2009 have been published. The provisions make amendments to the Insolvency Practitioners Regulations 2005. As the explanatory note states:

"These Regulations implement Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on services in the internal market (OJ No. L 376, 21.12.2006, p.36) (“the Directive”) as it relates to insolvency practitioners.

The Directive establishes general provisions facilitating the exercise of freedom of establishment for service providers and the free movement of services, while maintaining a high quality of services.

In particular, the Directive provides that—

in the absence of an overriding reason relating to the public interest, limitation of an authorisation to provide a service to a particular part of a territory is prohibited (Article 10(4));

authorisation granted to a provider of services must not be for a limited period except where authorisation is automatically renewed or is subject only to continued fulfilment of requirements (Article 11(1));

any fee in connection with authorisation procedures to provide a service must be reasonable and proportionate to the service provided in consideration of the fee and must not exceed the cost of the procedures (Article 13(2)); and

where a provider of services has professional liability insurance or a guarantee in a member State where the provider is already established which is equivalent or essentially comparable to that required in another member State, there must be no requirement for further professional liability insurance or guarantee (Article 23(2))."